ENQUIRER VOTE: Does 2007 race foretell next mayor?

Sep. 6, 2013

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The last time Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley ran against each other she beat him by three votes.

It was 2007. They were two of 23 candidates in a City Council field race for nine seats. Nobody was talking about parking or the streetcar.

So what clues might there be in those numbers about the results this time, in a head-to-head race between just the two of them? Definitely confirmation that both candidates have enjoyed a lot of support over the years and that this race could be exceedingly close.

The numbers also might be a guide to which of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods will be battlegrounds, places where Cranley and Qualls enjoyed nearly equal support. If so, Madisonville, Mount Lookout, College Hill and Hartwell, among others, should see and hear a lot from both candidates.

College Hill already has. In 2007, Qualls beat Cranley by 14 votes in Ward 23, which includes that neighborhood.

Here’s what an Enquirer review of those 2007 numbers tells us:

• Qualls won 13 of 26 wards, mostly straight through the middle of the city, from Downtown up through Clifton and College Hill;

• Cranley got the most votes in five wards. He took the West Side, where he used to live, Roselawn and Bond Hill;

• Both earned votes from 54 percent of people who voted that day. But 46 percent of voters didn’t choose either one;

“If one had finished first and one of them seventh, I’d say the one in seventh place should worry,” said David Pepper, one of a few people who has run in both a council field race and head-to-head for mayor. “But that’s not the case here. This tells you that they’re both very strong candidates.”

Very few people have done as well as Qualls in field races in Cincinnati and for as long as she has, he said.

“But a mayoral campaign is so different. In a field race, rarely does (another candidate) say anything very negative about you. In a mayoral race, they do.”

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What the results don’t show, though, is important too: Of the voters who chose them both in 2007, which would they have preferred if they had to choose just one?

Mack Mariani, a political science professor at Xavier University who looked at the numbers in response to an Enquirer request, said he noticed that while Qualls tended to have a broader base of support, the Cranley wards tended to be stronger when it came to turnout. Strong Cranley wards had 29.8% turnout, while strong Qualls wards had 20.8% turnout.

“From this, I take it that Qualls has a broader base of support, which makes sense given that she is the candidate who has a great deal of establishment support,” he said. “Cranley benefits from strong turnout in the west side districts.”

Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, said it’s difficult to look at field race results and apply them to this race.

“I don’t think anybody is going to dispute that John has a heads up in parts of the West Side,” he said. “The Cranley name goes back generations there. Beyond that.....”

Turnout, which isn’t usually all that great in a primary without a presidential election on the ballot, could be an issue too. In the last primary, in 2005, 20.66 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In 2001, the number was 15 percent. People were preoccupied that day – Sept. 11, 2001 – with the bombings of the Twin Towers and Pentagon.